Really? How so? OK, I actually saw this on Pharyngula earlier already, so I knew what it was about, but the summary did mention:

1) Fred Phelps (we all know who he is, right? The "GOD HATES FAGS" guy who will picket the funerals of fallen soldiers and all that.)2) Counter-protests.3) Specifically, counter-protests that included cosplay, at Comic-Con.

Yeah, you don't get all the details in TFA from TFS, but it's not actually a bad summary as far as the basics are concerned.

People claim that violence has never solved anything - but a good, solid dose lead in his ear would solve all of Phelp's problems.

I note that you became so excited, so worked into a froth as you wrote this that you even dropped an entire word. I can imagine someone saying this with flushed face and breathless voice.

If you truly think that this is the answer, then why don't you take up arms and go see to it instead of making pathetic comments about it on Slashdot? Yeah, that's what I thought. Why don't you leave us alone and go back to watching American Gladiators? You don't have the intestinal fortitude for real violence.

Someone who reminds us of several millennia of thinking about homosexuality, tweaked only in the past 40 years and extant in many parts of the world. An argument cannot be fought if its defenders are simply oppressed.

Someone, finally, whose messages are more complex than simple gay-bashing. I can guarantee you that every man you respect has at least one opinion which would make your blood boil, but you're happy to listen to everything else they say. Is it good to speak out against pedophilia in the Catholic church? To question the military's idolatrous respect of the US flag? To point out that Iraq was quite secular for an Arab nation while Bush was on a warmongering anti-Muslim campaign? To protest hate speech laws? Phelps has done all these things. And does his politically incorrect, courage-of-convictions straight talking have a place in modern debate? Certainly. If a mad cunt from the middle of nowhere can achieve that sort of international public recognition over such a long period, we all have something to learn from him.

Even if all you learn is that "God hates fags". Which is true. Abrahamic God as described in the OT hates fags.

And if this makes you not respect Abrahamic God because Abrahamic God sounds like a bit of a douche, well, all's the better.

What is there to lose by allowing Phelps to speak? He's not even wrong.

If people like Phelps cannot protest at military funerals any more, then America has lost and the American military's missions are yet more futile and other than in the spirit of defending America's freedom. If that's even possible.

Get five or ten street-boys to jizz in a squirt gun, use said squirt gun to "anoint" WBC while holding "WBC shows gay spunk as Phred hoped" sign.

Get geek to factor wind biases and then use "Bear Spray" suitably up-wind.

[Serious]But in truth, if WBC ever showed up in my region I would file a "reckless child endangerment" complaint against them with the department of child and family services. They are clearly trying to incite violence with "figh

Fred Phelps and his followers should be dragged out behind the barn, and put out of everyone's misery.

People claim that violence has never solved anything - but a good, solid dose lead in his ear would solve all of Phelp's problems.

And what good would that do? Isn't free speech protected in America? Or is it only agreed speech?

These morons have no followers other than their own "congregation" which are all related. Just how much more pathetic can they get?

They have no ability to spread their views, because they are so extreme, they even force people to question their own prejudices.In spite of themselves, they may actually do some good.

Raise a finger against them, and they have won. Kill them and they have won. Stop them, and you become them.

Laugh at them, and nothing they do can make any difference.

Put Lookalikes on a float in a gay pride march. Use them in advertising with a slogan to the effect of "Phelps picketed, so it must be good.." Make them into a tourist attraction, do like the comic convention people did and make them look even more bat shit crazy.

Make Phelps dildos. Do what ever daft and disrespectful thing you can think of to ridicule them. And hope they never stop, because they are what you become when you try to force your views on those who don't think like you do.

These people are a joke. Treat them as such. But remember, the best comedy has a social commentary undercurrent hidden in it.

The comic con people handled it perfectly. You on the other hand, allowed them to get under your skin. You lost.

"Freedom of speech also means that you are to respect your fellow man's views"

NO IT FUCKING DOESN'T. Read the fucking constitution, from the goddamned Declaration of Independence all the way through the bill of rights. Freedom of speech is the GOVERNMENT being unable to silence our thoughts about the government or speaking our minds. Respect is earned, not inherently given.

And your views right now get absolutely NO respect from me with that sort of ignorance.

You're kidding right? They have some BS pushed by the ACL and failed twice in parliment for Christ's sake. What do we have:warrant-less wiretapping and seizures at the airport for just looking funny. I'd say we got the better deal.

There, Fixed that for you.

The internet filter in Australia exists only in your mind, parliament smacked down the idea twice.

I rather liked the guy dressed as bender with a sign that said kill all humans. Honestly people should get together and do stuff like this more often it makes for some rather amusing pictures. perhaps even the people who are serious protesters will realize how crazy out their they are.

They don't even care about that - because Phelps and his gang aren't True Believers who want other people to agree with them, they're sociopaths and professional trolls who want attention, and negative attention is the best kind because it might give them another lawsuit. The best case they can get is a town trying to ban them, but if they can't get that, then having somebody punch them when there's a cop around means they can sue the guy who did it and also sue the cops for not protecting them would work.

An interesting perspective. I suspect you're right that these people are motivated by fame. I don't know that they aren't "true believers" though. I do think we're in agreement that there's really nothing that'll stop these people other than running out of money. Flying all over the country can't be cheap, nor can suing people. I guess I don't understand how they continue to win these lawsuits.

Perhaps the right approach is to start a fund to pay lawyers to fight the lawsuits? Doesn't matter if you win or not, just keep the thing tied up in court and bleed Phelps dry.

So what? Freedom needs to be continually fought for; if you ignore Phelps and give him no opposition, his viewpoint will gradually become more and more accepted; people will think him "normal" even if they don't agree with him. And good humoured satire seems to me the very best way to deal with him. Amusing, photogenic to spread the word, and non-confrontational. Freedom of speed (correctly) allows him to express his loathsome opinions - it should be used to provide the counterbalance.

I particularly liked "Odin is God - read The Mighty Thor #5". It beautifully encapsulates the curcularity of the bible bashers arguments.

So what? Freedom needs to be continually fought for; if you ignore Phelps and give him no opposition

The source of the problem isn't really that there's people like Phelps, and nobody is opposing them. It's that guy and his utterly minuscule congregation get any media attention at all. There's a million people out their that are batshit insane and worry about the orbital mind control lasers that nobody pays attention to. But yet this guy and his handful of followers gets paid attention to. Why?

They're orders of magnitude more entertaining than continually being confronted by idiots holding signs saying "god hates fags". Yeah? Well, God is dead, and the fags are still here. Long live advertising!

I could say that that is the problem with the US... however, I won't. Not in this case at least. The problem with the US in this case is that your police and court are too scared to deal with the idiots int he first place, since it's a "religion"... over here, the Westboro "Baptist Church" would have been labeled as a hate group, and been refused permission to demonstrate...

This is allowed pretty much everywhere in the West, provided you're not purposefully overly offensive, or openly practising hate speech against someone.

And forgive me for assuming that "god hates gays" etc is hate speech. I'm sure it's just an innocent opinion and has no intention of abusing your system in an obvious way to attract attention to an even more obvious attention whore.

Really, where does free speech end and abuse of another person begin? The freedom is only good as long as you don't abuse it to

He is a retired lawyer, two of his kids are lawyers too. He has this wonderful way of tying the government in knots. For instance his clan/cult have a big house. This is a church. The swimming pool is a baptismal font. All income is tax free due to being a religion. IRS was not pleased, but he beat them.

His views are totally wacko but playing the govt off against itself is just awesome.

So when you pay your taxes and you read of some lawyer or accountant who weasels his way into not paying any, this makes him a hero?

As someone's sig says "taxes buy civilisation". Phelps wants it both ways: he wants the Government to let him sue anyone who crosses him, and he doesn't want to pay for it. This, in my book, makes him a leech.

Just imagine how much less national debt we would have if religions had to pay taxes. Why do we continue to give religion special status that they earned when belief was compulsory and religion controlled politics? Oh wait, in the US, religion still does control politics. Any politician who is willing to demonstrate that he is a reasonable thinking person by publicly professing non-belief in the supernatural will likely lose elections.

This "church" consists of about two dozen members, and about half of those are Fred Phelps' family. Yet they get tremendous amounts of coverage, usually with a "dangerous new trend developing" tone to it.

I should do the same - dream up some ridiculous position to advocate and then see if I can get CNN to cover it. Maybe I'll start a group demanding that gorillas get the right to vote, or that we execute illegal immigrants, or insisting that everyone adopt a strict fruitarian diet like this guy [blogspot.com].

"Phelps does not believe what he is doing. This is a scam." If you believe this guy (and he makes some telling observations), Phelps is in the business of pushing people's buttons so he can sue them for violating his rights. That's his and his family's living.

Addicted to Hate: The Fred Phelps Story is an expos&#233; written by Jon Bell for the Topeka Capital-Journal that was suppressed by the paper because they were too chickenshit to take on Phelps. Bell sued the paper to either publish it or, if they refused, let him have the rights to his work, but he got neither. Instead, the full text was entered in the court record so it is now a public document that anyone can read whether Phelps likes it or not. So it's kinda long, but if you want a portrait of what a twisted gruesome mofo Phelps really is, here's your chance. I pity his children -- they never really had a chance.

I still love the idea someone on Kotaku had when they saw the Team Fortress 2 spy cosplayer with the 'GOD HATES SENTRIES' sign: He should have been standing in the midst of the WBC crazies, with one of THEIR signs, wearing 'a moron mask'.

The whole thing is just absolutely hilarious though. Good on them for mounting the counter-protest! Those WBC people are assholes.

I'm a Christian, and am not embarrassed to admit it. I'm embarrassed by these assholes, though. (Atheists often think that Christian == fundamentalist, which simply isn't true.)

I'm not sure it's more logical to say that the universe created itself than it was created by someone, but to each his own, I guess.

I actually saw them today at the con, holding up a Jesus Is Lord sign, as a bunch of cosplaying executioners paraded around. I didn't know it was the Westborough asshats, or I'd have had words with them, like my pastor did with some similar guys protesting outside the Percy Jackson and the Harry Potter Ripoffs movie.

I'm not sure it's more logical to say that the universe created itself than it was created by someone, but to each his own, I guess.

Actually, it kind of is. See Occam's Razor. To elaborate, if the universe needed to be created by something, and that something was God, then God also needed to be created by something. If God didn't need to be created by something, then there's no reason why the universe would need to be.

>>To elaborate, if the universe needed to be created by something, and that something was God, then God also needed to be created by something

Only if it is necessary that both the universe and God be created. The universe with its one-dimensional timeline is pretty clear to have had an origin (with the big bang), it's unclear if it is necessary for an entity existing outside of time to be created.

In other words, it's not an especially compelling analogy between the two.

it's unclear if it is necessary for an entity existing outside of time to be created.

You don't understand the Big Bang. If any event precipitated it, it must have happened — by definition — outside of our time. So your same argument, that whatever spawned out universe might exist outside of our notion of time, works in both cases.

I'm a Christian, and am not embarrassed to admit it. I'm embarrassed by these assholes, though. (Atheists often think that Christian == fundamentalist, which simply isn't true.)

I'm not sure it's more logical to say that the universe created itself than it was created by someone, but to each his own, I guess.

Funny how you can contradict yourself in two sentences.

It's always simpler to say the universe created itself than to say something else first created itself and later created the universe.

I consider myself a Christian in the sense that I've read the Bible and believe Jesus taught the right lessons in ethics. But I'm perfectly able to separate the Genesis from Jesus. I refuse to accept a Middle Age transcript of a Bronze Age legend as some kind of fundamental truth in the same way I accept "love thy neighbor" as fundamental truth.

I doubt that an anthropomorphic god such as postulated by the Christian churches exist. i even doubt that the man Jesus was someone who actually lived on earth. Call me an Atheist Christian if you wish.

I believe the New Testament was a compilation of teachings by some Jewish scholars somewhere in Israel two thousand years ago but, no matter where those ideas came from, there's good value in them, if you can interpret them right.

Personally I think this is the worst case of selective doctrine I've ever seen.

More like the best case of selective doctrine. A great moral advantage of being atheist is the easy "selective doctrine" of accepting what is right and good from all religions and philosophies.

Once you skip past the invisible-sky-wizard and the magic stuff elsewhere in the Bible, most atheists readily agree that Jesus taught a lot of really good things. In fact Thomas Jefferson published an edition of the Bible doing exactly that. A version of the Bible dedicated solely to Jesus's teachings and deleting deleting all the magical stuff. And as Jefferson put it, a REAL Christian is someone who follows the teachings of Christ. The fake Christians are the people preaching all that other Bible dogma, the stuff which Christ never said nor saw.

A Christian missionary once asked Ghandi "though you quote the words of Christ often, why is that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower?" to which Ghandi replied "Oh, I don't reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It's just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ".

All the good Christians are the ones who dump the violent, prejudiced, intolerant bullshit that infests any religion and concentrate on DOING GOOD. And yes, I'm an atheist, I don't need the threat of punishment to do good.

Let's say that we accept the theory that something needed to jumpstart the universe, and that thing does not necessarily have to follow the same rules the universe does (and thus doesn't need a creator of it's own).

What reason exactly do we have to believe that thing is the biblical god?

Couldn't it just aswell have been Zeus? Odin?

Are the Muslims right? Jews? Christians? Buddhists? Tao?

The only sane position to take is that they're all wrong, and while there might exist an omnipotent entity, it's insane to think he gives a fuck about you following a religion.

Though it doesn't appear that religious people on average are any more moral then the secular. Most of us learn right and wrong from our parents and society in general and those that don't want to be moral seem to have no problem finding justifications for whatever they want by selective readings of their favorite books and religious and secular alike are just as good at saying "Oh, those people aren't like us, they don't deserve to be treated good"

"I'm not sure it's more logical to say that the universe created itself than it was created by someone, but to each his own, I guess."

Common Christian misconception. Cosmologists do not claim " the universe created itself", they claim that 13.7 billion years ago it was all squeezed into a singularity and they have very strong evidence to back that claim. They will readily amit they haven't got a clue where the point particle came from, in fact they don't even know what the word "where" means in that cont

And you also get upset when theists call you asshats, am I right? (Do you never wonder why?)

Honestly, I think the arguments for the existence of God are more compelling than the opposite, but doing your dickwad atheist bit isn't a good counterargument.

Dawkins has made being-an-asshole-to-theists his raison d'etre, but it neither makes him right, nor even sound particularly smart. His arguments are laughably bad when he strays outside the area he knows (evolutionary biology) and into a region he knows nothing about (theology). To be fair, though - he's still not as stupid as the Westborough fuckers.

Better to be considered an asshat by someone who is clearly delusional, than being delusional yourself - or enabling their delusions at the cost to society as a whole. Religion needs put down, hard.
The best single argument for me against faith has been one posited by Hitchens in part 2 of a debate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYaQpRZJl18&feature=related [youtube.com] (part1) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkHuvErbpd0&NR=1 [youtube.com] (part 2). The idea that existence of this sort of god being "compelling" is more absurd than belief in astrology, reading the future in tea-leaves and various other nonsense.

Better to be considered an asshat by someone who is clearly delusional, than being delusional yourself - or enabling their delusions at the cost to society as a whole. Religion needs put down, hard.

Ideology is the only thing that is able to keep a human society from imploding upon itself. Be happy that you're able to choose your ideology yourself, and be honest about your ideology if you want to be.

And before you dream of putting down mainstream Christianity (for example), think for a while what is most likely to replace it. I'm pretty sure it won't be as pleasant for you.

Religion will disappear on it's own, if it's to disappear at all, when humanity is ready to collectively replace it with something else. Trying to speed the process directly will lead to rise of ideological fundamentalism.

>>Religion has, historically speaking, been the greatest force for good our planet has ever seen.

The one thing religion is good at is getting otherwise good people to do, enable those that do, and believe in, terrible acts. That's it. You don't need to be religious to be charitable, as the existence of secular aid organisations around the world will attest to. But this dick measuring contest between theist vs atheist "good works" is ridiculous and belittles that same work on both sides, so I'll avoid that as much as possible. What I will say to this though is on a different aspect of the same point. You will accept, I hope, that humanity seems naturally predisposed to the belief in a God. And I imagine you will also accept the obvious statement that for a large portion of our history, religion exerted a far greater force on our lives than it does now. So when you say that, historically speaking, religion has been the greatest force of good, you must also accept that historically speaking, religion mandated that it be the only allowable force. The difference between now and then is that now it no longer has the power to enforce that mandate. In the lifetime of human society, it is only last week that you would have to be almost suicidal to admit that you did not believe in a God, when the church of that God had power over the course of your life. It is only last week that Christians were burning the philosophies of ancient Greece in the belief that any morality before Jesus was devoid of value. Religion had a stranglehold as the only acceptable front for morality - so of course, if you look back over history and notice the good things it does, you will see some religious involvement.

Religion does however retard humanity's progress. It does not do it sufficiently that we stall or move backwards, but this is something that the modern world is changing. In history, when religiosity was a problem, it killed people. It burned books. It maybe wiped out a town or village. Started a jihad that ended in the death of a tribe or culture. Maybe even instigated the odd war, leading to the deaths of thousands. Terrible as these things no doubt were, they were not enough to halt human progress. It continued inexorably upwards - I posit, without the need for religion at all. Today, when religion makes a mistake, it can take a mere modern convenience, slam it into another and kill thousands. Imagine for a moment what would happen if religion today got its hands on a real weapon. In the last hour of human history, we gained the capability for mass destruction, the likes of which would only take one more religious mistake, to not just retard human progress - or set it back - but to wipe it out completely. You can of course say, it doesn't have to be a religious mistake that does this. You're right, it doesn't. But having another finger on the trigger is not ideal, and whereas a non religious person will not want to destroy the world - the 3 great monotheisms positively look forward to it.

>>Hitchens is a frothing moron who doesn't know the first thing about what he's talking about - his sole tactic is to sound British and snotty when talking about religion. I've watched several dozens of his debates online, especially with Dinesh D'Souza (who doesn't do an especially good job defending Christianity), and I've yet to see him put together a single cogent argument. Other than, I suppose, the fact that he'll sneer at you if you believe.

>>You do know that the notion that religious people probably shouldn't kill each other over religion... is a Christian idea, don't you? It is typically attributed to atheism, but is the result of a lot of the ostensibly religious wars we had in Europe back in the day.

Right, because the Abrahamic God wasn't a petty, vengeful little dictator who frequently ordered the destruction of races and cultures he didn't like, or who worshipped a stone altar over him. Oh, right, he was! That's some Christian m

I'm reluctant to enter this conversation, given its very low standards for mutual respect, but I can't let this common, but to me incorrect, argument pass. How can we know how things would be without religion? That's just an initial logical fillip.
But how about all the pain that religion HAS caused? Europe was at war of Catholicism versus Protestantism for several hundred years. Islam and Christianity have been at war for longer than that. Granted, there were side issues of imperialism. But how about the persecution of Mormons? Mormons persecuting gays? What about the various killing sprees over doctrine in the early days of the Catholic church, when various heresies were eliminating by exterminating their adherents like so many cockroaches? Or (despite the Church's whitewash to the contrary) the tacit support or active participation of Catholic bishops in the German Nazi party of the 1930s-40s? (By the way, I qualify it as "German" and by date because I live in a city that will soon see a Nazi rally--one supported by numerous Christian organizations, such as the World Church of the Creator.) There are a myriad of examples, including persecution of Protestants in France in the 18thC, persecution of certain _types_ of Protestants in the United Kingdom at the same time, persecution of Jews, well, pretty much all the time. Most of my examples are of Christian abuses because that's what I know best. I'm sure the Buddhists and Hindis and Taoists and so on have had their hand in the bloodbath too.
Here's where religious apologists will say "But all these people were doing it wrong." They certainly were. But they were doing it. And if you say "They weren't Christian," be happy these folks aren't around to mete out the witch-burning, dunking, impaling, gassing, stoning, or what-have-you they'd think you deserve for not doing it right yourself.
This is not to say religion is all bad. But I suspect that the sum total of misery the world has received from the religious may well equal, or even exceed, any benefits of religion. By all means, I'm not saying religious people should go away, shut up, or even keep their sweaty Mormon and/or Baptist butts off my front porch (August is too hot for you to show up suggesting that I'm in for the worst fate you can imagine). But I do think liberal Christians should see to their coreligionists and quit worrying about atheists. And they should sure as hell keep their meddling little fingers out my government and schools.

Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

-George Washington

I love it when the fanatics quote that. Read it very closely, he's saying religion is good for stupid people who can't be bothered to reason through things on their own. It's one of the most damning comments on religious believers written by any of the founding fathers.

Your points are just as valid with respect to non-religious causes. For example, Nazi ideology was based on the master race theory, which had nothing to do with any of the major religions, yet killed more people in one year than the inquisition killed in all of history. And lets not forget communism, which killed about 50 million people in Russia alone. While you do have people with insane religious zeal, most religious people have a conscience which keeps them from taking part in mass misery; contrast this with "rational" ideologies which will make arbitrary divisions based on skin color, social class, etc... and disenfranchise a whole class of people.

What if there were a single cause for many of the world's ills in both the social and personal spheres, from overpopulation, ecological destruction, ethnic violence and hatred, to addictions, conflicts between the sexes, the breakdown of the family, and even why it feels good to be bad? Sound too simplistic or far-fetched? A core underlying cause of all these problems is hidden authoritarianism.Buying into, communism, spiritual cults, organized religion, UFO cults, therapy cults, Jim Jones, David Koresh, Hi

I would think Muslims would be champing at the bit to deny Christ and hence, Christianity, but they don't.

That's because you're ignorant (I'm using the word literally here, not as an insult -- there are things you are unaware of.) Muslims worship the same god; they consider Jesus one of their prophets. They just think Christians worship incorrectly (exactly the same complaint many Christians make of each other.)

Calling the Bible stories fiction is really a stretch, especially in light of the fact th

"And you also get upset when theists call you asshats, am I right? (Do you never wonder why?)"

Nope. Theists are deluded, what can one expect from them?

"Dawkins has made being-an-asshole-to-theists his raison d'etre, but it neither makes him right, nor even sound particularly smart. His arguments are laughably bad when he strays outside the area he knows (evolutionary biology) and into a region he knows nothing about (theology). To be fair, though - he's still not as stupid as the Westborough fuckers."

I think the arguments for the existence of God are more compelling than the opposite

Which is the exact description of your delusion. You see, there is not a single argument for the existence of God. Not one. Simply because the "existence of God" idea is not even close to being defined to the level where an argument for or against it can be made.

As someone smart once said - and I am paraphrasing - you are not even wrong.

"Again, he's completely ignorant of history. You can conduct natural experiments, as it were, by comparing and contrasting the evolution of societies with and without the Abrahamic God, and also how culture change after missionaries enter their culture. It's a fascinating study, and one that is at complete odds with his theory."

Yup. Abrahamic societies generally become more hateful. Just look at Africa.

"Islamic thinkers used pure reason to derive the fact that our universe had to have an origin, and thus that the universe tended to show evidence of God, rather than the opposite... back in the middle ages. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument)"

Kalam's argument is stupid on many levels.

First, it's applicable to God - it also has to be created by something (a meta-God?). Which in turn must be created by something else, ad infinitum.

If you try to apply an argument that God is infinite and thus has no beginning, then this argument can very well be applied to the Universe itself.

And this is only on a level of philosophical arguments (i.e. within the model postulated by the author).

If we look at the real world, we'll see events happening without cause everywhere (virtual particles, radioactive decay, etc.).

And General Relativity also posits that it's possible to have the 'beginning of time'.

Fellow atheist here. Although, I prefer to say "I don't believe in God." instead. Yeah, I'm an atheist but atheism is developing its own dogmatism and I'm not interested, so I'm trying to distance myself from it.

Anyway, getting in people's faces about their religion is as bad as when religious folks get in ours about our lack of belief. If we show more respect for one another,maybe,just maybe most folks will chill.

Sure, there still will be the Phelps crowd and others who will have a problem, but if you'll notice, even folks of the same faith consider them (Phelps' crowd) to be kooks.

It's a fact that the universe exists and *something* caused the universe to exist. This something could be the laws of physics or some hitherto unknown mathematical or logical principle. You are welcome to call that principle "god" if you wish.

But to extend that basic principle to some super-accountant being somewhere who's keeping tabs on everything we do and will intervene in our existence if we nag him enough and will punish those of us who don't praise him enough...

It's a nice thought, that mutual respect would be enough to win out in the end. I used to believe that myself, and would hate it when other atheists took innocuous statements to grandstand upon. Now I support them wholeheartedly, because the frame of the debate has so radically changed. Religious people, across each of the 3 major monotheisms are all, every single one of them, either looking forward to, enabling, or otherwise taking part in a plot that involves the extinction of the human race. If they don'

But let's get real -- we're not doing this. [atheistcartoons.com] It's more like this. [atheistcartoons.com] I have honestly never seen an atheist be militant [atheistcartoons.com] in the sense that believers

>>Believing in invisible men in the sky that will reward you if your good is on par with believing in leprechauns or wish granting genies. Oddly, it is socially acceptable to admit to only one of those things.

Says the Anonymous Coward, posting on a forum where I guarantee you the strong majority will be atheists replying to my post.

There's several levels of irony and hypocrisy there, but it's 4AM and I have yet more Comicon photos to upload...

Many Americans are confused and think the Bible is the basis of American law or that we are a Christian nation. Which is amazing, since everyone should learn/have learned in history class in school that we are founded on a secular constitution that specifies that religion must not be used for law making or as a test for holding any office.

Not only do I worship in public, I did so today with 200 other like-minded souls. We've even got (hold on to your hat) an entire building dedicated to it. With a sign telling _everyone_ what's going on inside.

I am from Sweden.

Well I'm sorry for that but do you think you should admit that in public?

If you mean to say that "God does not exist," cannot possibly be the conclusion of a sound argument, you're simply wrong. Indeed there are many valid arguments which would serve as candidates (evil, hiddenness, etc.).